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Monday, July 21, 2014

ALA Las Vegas: Take-aways from being with 25k+ librarians for a couple of days

The
American Library Association's annual conference is a heaving mass of
librarians (of all varieties) in one place for four days -
Friday-Monday, June 26-30. Almost any US city is a convenient stopover for me, heading to Maine, at the end of the school year.

This year ALA was in Las Vegas, a venue that lived up to its stereotype, in the eyes of a first-time visitor. Next year's location - San Francisco - will be more my style perhaps.

But ALA is always an enriching experience, no matter where it's held.

The problem is to figure out what and who you want to see in the small time and huge space of the event (the exhibition hall alone is worth four days).

You
can search offerings and construct your own schedule online ahead of
time -- and there is a mobile app -- but the lack of fast/reliable/free
internet access (especially Sunday) made that fairly irrelevant. And
for those of us with overseas phone accounts, the smart-phone solution
for internet data access wasn't very economical. So making off-line
lists and lugging around the fat, physical ALA Guide was a sad, but
comforting, necessity.

Alexander Dawson:
--
the librarian pointed out how, in designing the school, no electrical
cables or wiring is hidden, so kids are very aware of where electricity
is being used, e.g., for air conditioning, for internet access, etc.;
-- the library had an "Aurasma" wall -- where we could pick up iPads, scan images, and watch videos the kids had made for one unit of inquiry (e.g., Irish castles);
--
two authors a year do two-week residencies, including 2 days in each
classroom, e.g., Brian Falkner (from NZ) and Paul Owen Lewis -- during which time
each student creates a book;

Faith Lutheran:
-- had quite a few full-size physical displays, e.g., military uniforms and a skeleton;
-- had an author/illustrator wall, where each visiting celebrity's name is added each year;

LV Day School:
--
they offer a "Classic Reader" program -- where
students read more "quality" literature, and then discuss with an adult, four books above and beyond
their other reading;
-- they run an "Adopt a Shelf" program for
parents -- where parents are responsible for re-shelving and keeping one
shelf looking tip-top -- they say it's quite competitive!

Overall,
questions focused on staffing (all were minimally staffed,
surprisingly) and what they were doing for ebook provision (e.g., all
had Overdrive, despite the fact the local library offers it -- though not sure
if that affected their choice of titles -- would they try to avoid
overlap?).

NETWORKING

This is no small part of ALA. Many of us
international school librarians managed to find each other (and we are
determined to make it more organized next year).

The
four of us from Singapore (Kim Klein from Stamford American
International School, Kate Brundage from Singapore American School, and
Susanne Clower and I from United World College of Southeast Asia - East
campus) arrived as a nucleus -- and soon found Leanne Mercado from
Nishimachi International School (Tokyo), as well as Candace Aiani and
Barb Middleton from Taipei American School. Later we connected with
Leslie Henry from Jakarta International School and Victoria Robins from
ASF Guadalajara Mexico. There were others on the list of international
attendees, but poor connectivity (and our overseas phones) made it hard
to communicate. I kick myself that I didn't put out a general call on
the social media channels (like the ECIS iSkoodle listserv) beforehand.

During the pre-conference session of school visits, while getting on or off the bus, I overheard one woman say
the word"Sakura" -- and I quickly determined to talk to her at the next stop,
knowing she must have been referring to the Japanese international school librarian book award program, which is how I met Leanne Mercado. Only when I later I put a face on the name
"Barb Middleton" did I realize that she was on the same Friday school
library tour, but because her registration tagged identified her as
being from Minnesota, I didn't realize she was one of us - from Taipei
American School.

Those of us that managed to meet up
did our best to "divide and conquer" in terms of session attendance.

TO DO:

Finish de-briefing with those who attended this year, especially my Singapore colleagues when we all get back in August;

Next year: advertise on social media for all going to ALA to connect ahead of time;

Next year: maybe have a group of us do a panel presentation on
International School Librarians - as an employment opportunity - pluses
and minuses, etc.

EBOOKS

A big complaint aboutOverdrive for schools
has been the annual fee -- as much as
US$4k/yr in the past. But at their ALA booth, an Overdrive
representative confirmed they have recently lowered the cost for school
libraries. Now it is US$1k/yr for up to 999 students and US$2k/yr
for up to 1,999 students. This cost is content
purchase per annum -- it's not an annual usage fee -- which is great.

For
those of us in international schools, a ongoing issue with all ebook
vendors has been digital rights management (DRM) -- where popular titles
are often not available to us, being situated outside the countries
that are the biggest publishers (USA, UK, Australia, etc.). I asked the
Overdrive rep where I could preview the titles actually available to us
in Singapore -- and she suggested I contact the sales force and get
access to a demo overseas account.

StarWalk KidsMediais a new ebook vendor -- headed by the famous (and charming) non-fiction author for kids, Seymour Simon (and his wife). 500 titles available so far, for grades K-8, half fiction, half non-fiction. Leveled according to Fountas and
Pinnell. Only US$895 a year (at least for big schools like ours -- I
forget if it's cheaper for smaller schools.) Unlimited, simultaneous
access. Device neutral -- in fact, they assured me that if users
downloaded a title (as you have to do to read on a mobile device), the
title will stay accessible on the device for as long as the subscription
(e.g., a year). And they will provide MARC records. It sounds a lot
like BookFlix --
but going as high as Grade 8 in interest and complexity. They were
happy to offer us a 1-month free trial -- which I intend to do.

Kindle, Kindle, Kindle....?
Candace Aiani (High School) and Barb Middleton (Primary School) have
embarked wholeheartedly on a Kindle-loaning program at Taipei American
School - and have a wealth of experience. Back in February she put a
call out to the SILCAsia listserv, starting a discussion on the management of Kindles in schools - which some of you may have seen.

They
organize their Kindles into "pods" of 5 devices each -- as each Kindle
account can be synced to five devices. Each Kindle (in a pod) will have
up to 30 titles or so on it. Click here to see what a search for "Kindle" and "pod" turns up in Candace's High School catalog. Click here to see what
one Kindle might have on it, e.g., Pod "I". (Now that Kindle Unlimited
has been launched, I wonder how many of their titles are available to overseas subscribers.)

Taipei American School has gone for Overdrive in a big way -- see their Overdrive homepage
-- even though the Overdrive books can't be downloaded to overseas
Kindles, they said. They also aren't thrilled about the fact there is
often a 6-month delay getting the latest titles into Overdrive. Note: Barb affirms that FollettShelf is far easier for primary school students to use than Overdrive.

TO DO:

Contact sales@overdrive.com and ask for access to a demo overseas
account -- now that the Overdrive annual fee is reasonable for school
libraries -- for secondary school.

Start 1-month free trial in September of StarWalk KidsMedia -- for primary school.

Later, in the exhibits hall, I ran into Scott Nicholson,
professor at the iSchool in Syracuse and expert on gaming -- (I
attended one of his workshops last year at ALA) -- and was thrilled to
hear he is due to come to Singapore in November to work with the
National Library Board (NLB). Scott did several sessions at ALA this
year -- and is particularly keen on the cognitive benefit of creating
games, not just playing them. Read some of his past papers here.

In the course of our conversation, he also alerted me to the Math Fairs for students being held annually in Toronto -- which I could definitely see our campus implementing.

Connect with Scott Nicholson before November -- and with the NLB -- and see if I can organize an ISLN or school event as well when he is there.

Talk to Tilson Crew, our primary school math coach, to learn more
about the math games that she has created and made available in our
primary library for borrowing.

Talk to all our math teachers about the possibility of getting a math fair going at our school.

READING

ALA is one big reading-love-fest. Everyone there is
full of book-talk, whether ebook or pbook. And walking down the aisles
of the exhibition hall, I just kept snapping photos of book covers, if
not picking up free ARCs. I refuse to fetishize signed editions, making
it easy to avoid the urge to join any queues in front of author booths
in the exhibition hall -- though I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to chat
with authors when given the casual chance, e.g., attending a reception
with the author/illustrator Kevin Hawkes who happens to live in Gorham,
Maine, one town over from my hometown.

Donalyn Miller, aka The Book Whisperer and Grade 5 teacher extraordinaire, gave a talk on "Fostering Positive Reading Identities".
I was sitting between two international primary school
teacher-librarians (Leanne Mercado from Tokyo and Barb Middleton from
Taiwan) and we just kept nodding and laughing as Donalyn enlightened us
with her research and entertained us with her personal experiences as a
reader and reading teacher.

Like
her, my identity as a reader was clinched in 3rd grade thanks to "SRA"
-- that popular color-coded series of comprehension exercises in a box
(which introduced me to speed reading as a competitive sport) -- and a
memorable teacher, Miss Poole, who not only read "Charlotte's Web" to
us, but also the delightful (though 1950s antiquated) "Mrs. Piggle
Wiggle" series of magic solutions.

Donalyn talked about
the power of reading communities and reiterated the influence of book
"commercials" arising out of the natural community (e.g., peer-to-peer
recommendations) -- and the role modeling of being a reader and
read-alouds -- and all the things we know and have been doing, but need
to remember are terribly inter-connected and important.

She
challenges her students to read 40 or more books a year -- without any
other reward system. (Reading is its own reward, as she says.)

She talked about the intersection of reading interest (motivation), reading level (ability), and background knowledge (fertile ground for understanding) in terms of book choice. Which makes me think of my beloved Design Thinking intersection of desirability (are you interested in the topic?), feasibility (does it match the assignment?) and viability (do we have the resources to support you) -- relating to research questions.

Though
when it comes to reading levels, she reminded us that lexiles are only
scaffolds (e.g., Fahrenheit 451 and The Diary of a Wimpy Kid
have the same lexile band (true??)) -- and that text complexity is about what is NOT found on the page.

She recommends having a small pile of "Special Class Books" -- ready to hand to any child who says they have no book to read.

I
like her idea of "Epicenter Readers" -- that category of people
who influence other people's reading, whether in the classroom or in life. Her own include John Schumacher
(@mrschureads) and Teri Lesesne (@professornana). I happened to meet two long-standing online "Epicenter Readers" of my own at a Random House reception: Lynn Rutan and Cindy Dobrez (aka the Bookends bloggers) -- and gushed over them like a proper groupie.

Donalyn also reiterated the wisdom that less-than-highbrow series helps develop readers. They are not to be sneered at. Neither is the habit of re-reading. As she reminded us, close reading is re-reading with a purpose.

There
are so many information literacy sessions to attend at ALA, some
school-focused, some university-level. As a high-school
teacher-librarian, I am often indifferent to that distinction, as much
of the information literacy instruction is focused on students just entering tertiary education.

A big difference, however, is that
school-based librarians are almost all trained teachers, while
university ones aren't (necessarily). One
flipped university classroom session I attended was a bit of a waste, as it mainly
extolled the benefits of using curriculum design models in designing
flipped courses, which any teacher-librarian would already appreciate.
And I already knew about the handy tools for flipping the classroom
being recommended, e.g., Screencastr, Prezi, Google Docs, etc.But
another session by university librarians teaching information literacy was brilliant in every way -- content, design, and presentation -- "From Stumbling Blocks to Building Blocks: Using Threshold Concepts to Teach Information Literacy." See their Powerpoint slides here.

I’d read
about threshold concepts, as defined by Meyer and Land
(academic instruction experts) — and discussed by David Perkins (of
Harvard fame and general teaching expert), before — but had never read or heard anyone talk about them with specific reference to the field of information literacy, which is what this panel of academic librarians did.

The metaphor of the threshold refers to the acquisition of these concepts -- which can be compared to crossing a border; a
mental, liminal space, delimited by time and experience; an extended place where the novice transitions over time to being an expert, with some people getting stuck until they "get it" (learning bottlenecks), some roaming around inside indefinitely, perhaps never to emerge. A lens is a popular metaphor for appreciating the power of threshold concepts in different disciplines - to see with the eyes of an expert. (The transition from one side to the other also reminds me of the shift from slow thinking to fast thinking (System 1 and System 2) of Daniel Kahnemann et al.)

They then discussed some basic information literacy threshold
concepts they had distilled as "enduring understandings," using theWiggins and McTighe model of backward design, for their teaching practice. FORMAT AS PROCESS INFORMATION AS COMMODITYAUTHORITY IS CONSTRUCTED + CONTEXTUALMETADATA = FINDABILITY (aka GOOD SEARCHES USE DATABASE STRUCTURES)DATABASE = ORGANIZED COLLECTIONPRIMARY
SOURCES DEPEND ON PERSPECTIVE

For example, in exploring FORMAT AS THE RESULT OF A PROCESS, they showed the following typical search results, which to the average student would all look like "websites":

Go read the seminal
articles by Land + Meyer -- and other resources available on the wonderful webpage page of the three presenters: http://ilthresholdconcepts.com.

Another librarian showed how he promotes some of his library's more unusual digital collections as a means of exploring primary vs. secondary sources with students, e.g., presenting students with an
archive of 1950s women’s magazines and having them imagine for what
research question would particular advertisements or articles be a
primary source. Showing how questions develop, to a large degree, from the resources being used - in an iterative cycle.

The mantra they left us with: READ -- SHARE -- ACT.

Many
sessions were preceded by awards for best practice. In the case
of the Threshold Concepts one, an award was given to Library DIY (by Meredith Farkas) — a flipped classroom example of teaching
procedural (as opposed to conceptual) stuff. I'd already starred the project in my Diigo bookmarks as something to emulate -- and was thrilled to see it so publicly recognized.

There was also a poster session on a website called InfoSkills2Go - http://infoskills2go.com/ -- which allows college-bound high school students to earn badges in four categories: academic integrity, information seeking, information organization, and information evaluation, using TRAILS as the pre-test and post-test.

Re-think my own teaching modules with these info lit threshold concepts in mind

Look at the InfoSkills2Go website

DISCOVERY (AND FAST CATALOGING)There
is a tension between the Google single box search — and the box (or boxes) we provide as windows into our local information resources. Between what is out there in the largest sense of the world and what we can actually deliver (from our physical collection and our various virtual ones).Candace
(of the Taipei American School) told me she has recently implemented
the EBSCO discovery layer. I didn’t get a chance to really get into
this with her (which is why I am determined to get up to Taipei to spend
concentrated time absorbing her school’s information environment and
how she is tackling these common problems of ours).

In
terms of our library catalogs — Follett Destiny, for both Candace and
me — the new Universal Search interface is an improvement (e.g., useful filtering via the sidebar). But it's still slow and cumbersome compared to Google.

Should we still be trying to steer students to our catalog? What if we the library just focused on delivery of what students find elsewhere? Leave the catalog there as our best inventory tool and perfect Subject Headings for our own discovery purposes, but not expect students to desert their best-friend Google? (NB: I've been heavily influenced by the thoughts of Aaron Tay (an academic librarian in Singapore) -- see this Sept 2013 blog post of his and his ongoing Flipboard magazine on Web scale search and discovery systems.)

Traditionally (think: paper card
catalogs) findability has depended upon controlled Subject Headings (e.g.,
Library of Congress (LCSH)), where each item would have no more than six
highly-faceted subjects (e.g., Indonesia - Relations - China - History). Nowadays, with
full-text searching and unlimited tags possible, controlled vocabularies are less important -- at least to users.

The single search box -- allowing for multiple fields and combination of terms to be searched at once -- demands a re-think of subject headings. Which is why I've been following the FAST cataloging project for years -- and chose to attend the Faceted Subject Access Interest Group sessions at ALA this year.

FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology)

As much as RDA(1) is
about moving bibliographic metadata forward, FAST cataloging is the cutting edge of subject heading progress. Which is perhaps why it was standing room only in this session where Cornell University librarians (one of whom is a Discovery Metadata Librarian by title) relayed their experience as
guinea pigs converting their data from LCSH to FAST — in collaboration
with OCLC Research (who were also in the room). They're hoping to go live on July 1st. (See their Powerpoint slides here.)

A lot of the technical stuff was beyond me -- and the scale difference
between Cornell’s converting their holdings and a school library like mine are enormous. But I still got a lot out of the session -- and think we should be moving to FAST subject headings instead of Sears/LCSH.

Imagine a grid where these ten senses are the y-axis. Then put these library space functions across the x-axis: assembly, contemplation, data collection, presentation, reading, refuge, retreat, storage, studying, and teaching. Consider the intersection of each -- and decide priorities and possibilities.

We need to consider the intersection of three things: Behavior, Experience, and Brain Activity in a space like a library.

Speakers talked of Inspiration, Trust, and Empathy, as well as Symbolism, Wayfinding, and Exploration -- linking hand, brain, and symbol. They asked us to consider what Affordances the library provides, to invite or indicate desired actions -- and the tension between Function and Representation (symbolism) in our spaces.

Frankly, I didn't get any practical inspirations from the session, but felt mentally stretched from sitting through it.

Meanwhile some other teacher-librarian
went to a discussion meeting (one of those smaller things in the
schedule that you could miss in the blink of an eye, unless you were
observant) on The Information Commons. Of all the things I was listening for
in her brief summary in the time we had for debrief, I latched onto her
reporting of someone who had “pink things hanging from the ceiling” that
absorbed sound. The ALA notes on this meeting also mention "pink noise machines" (see here). I am now searching for this mysterious product/item.
(Contact me if you can help!) (Could the person have been talking about "pink noise" - in contrast to "white noise" -- see distinction here -- instead of something literally pink?)

Acoustics is my ongoing elephant in the room and I am on the lookout for all
ameliorating accessories. (Over the summer there are ceiling/wall
panels being installed in my library — wish I had done my
pre-installation research benchmarks and logged some decibel stats….)

Another poster session I missed was "Gearing Up for College" -- about university libraries reaching out to low-income middle school children who excel in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields. Interestingly, they used a map activity to get the students to observe what was going on in the university library -- and hopefully to get interested in what they were observing. (Reminds me of the ALA program session I attended last year -- where Andrew Asher described having students create color-timed cognitive maps of the library -- see http://www.andrewasher.net/BiblioEthnoHistorioGraphy/category/mapping/. A fascinating way to make the virtual visible.... )

Makerspaces

Makerspaces is definitely still a hot topic for libraries. I did a full-day pre-conference last year at ALA on them, and knew I was going to a four-day "Constructing Modern Knowledge" summer institute in New Hampshire, July 8-11, which would be completely about making things (watch for another blog post eventually), so I didn't bother to attend maker-related sessions at ALA.

As my school already has an extensive Design and Technology department and set-up (with 3D printers, laser cutters, et al.), I'm thinking the library should focus on making to do with books -- like setting up a Writing Center (a project several of us have been trying to get off the ground for three years now) and promoting Book Art.

One poster session was about an annual RE:BOOK altered book contest -- at the Claremont College Libraries. See the PDF here. What a great way to re-purpose donated books -- of which I have plenty.

TO DO:

Connect with the art teachers and get some regular altered book art going -- perhaps with a permanent book art workspace in a corner of the library -- or up on the Art Floor. I like the idea of an annual contest.

PDA (Patron Driven Acquisition)

When I hear "PDA," I still think of "public display of affection" -- something every high school librarian deals with every day. But it's the latest term for users letting us know what they want (starting from that good 'ole book suggestion form) -- and it goes hand-in-hand with a good collection policy.

There were several small sessions on PDA as it relates to e-book and video purchases, e.g., see here, here, and here.

Candace was telling me how she has instituted an online ticketing system for all library requests -- whether book purchase recommendations or queries about database passwords, etc. I forget the name of the software package she said she bought, but it is one where people can search the database, to see the status of their problem or request. Our Facilities and IT Depts both use a basic ticketing system, but we users don't have the ability to search their records. Must look into it for our library. I know there are requests that fall off my radar.....

The Latest and the Greatest: ARCs and Awards

For school librarians, there are two important annual lists that get announced at ALA.

Last
year at ALA I did a full-day pre-conference on RDA (Resource
Description + Access). What I immediately love about RDA is its simple hierarchy, distinguishing between Work,
Expression, Manifestation, Item (WEMI), not to mention its elaboration of
dates — so one can distinguish between work creation date, original
publication date, particular edition date, and manufacture date.

8 comments:

Thanks for linking to our pink noise vs white noise discussion Katie. If you have any questions on room acoustics I would be happy to help. I have educational resources on our youtube channel at www.youtube.com/acousticfields - I'm assuming you want to make your library as quiet as possible. If so absorption and room reflections are your starting points. Please email at dennis@acousticfields.com or pose any question and I can answer it in my weekly google hangout on room acoustics.

Happy to help any center of learning. Anything to help nurture a little more wisdom in this world.

What an impressive reflection on the conference. I will have to do the same thing. So wonderful meeting you! I just got back from the IFLA world conference in Lyon, France. I finally heard some pedagogy regarding creative spaces in libraries. I went to some of the Makerspace, 3D printing at ALA and didn't really get it. I like your idea of a writing space. IFLA talked about transmedia spaces that means incorporating print, audio, games, etc in the library. Still jet lagged. Thanks too for all the great links. I have Donalyn Miller's newest book on my reading list. Have a great start to your school year! Barb

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